Da MEDLINE: *Environmental Health•*Epidemiology•Female•Human•Male•Occupational Diseases/ep [Epidemiology]•Public Health•Research AB: Some developments of research in environmental epidemiology are reviewed, with special emphasis on the limitations of currently adopted methods. At the light of causal criteria commonly used in the evaluation of epidemiologic studies, an approach based on the integration of geographic and analytic studies is suggested, in order to obtain results relevant in terms of public health